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SPITFIRE GRILL'

SPITFIRE GRILL';What's Wrong With Values?

Published: February 25, 1996

To the Editor:

I was stunned and saddened by Caryn James's essay about the recent Sundance Film Festival, "The Unknown Sundance, in Unlikely Places" [Feb. 4].

Some people at Sundance, upon learning that Gregory Productions, the company that produced the award-winning "Care of the Spitfire Grill," was an offshoot of the Sacred Heart League, apparently thought that the artistic merit of the film was lessened. Gregory Productions exists to promote values of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Ms. James reports that one distributor found this "insidious." Watching the film with the company's affiliation with the Sacred Heart League in mind, Ms. James found the biblical imagery "slightly sinister." She has the eerie sense that "viewers are being proselytized without their knowledge." What nonsense!

If "Care of the Spitfire Grill" is a poor film artistically, it should not have won the feature film Audience Award. But let's not dismiss it because it promotes values. Every screenwriter and director of a serious film is promoting values. Is this permissible as long as they are not Judeo-Christian values? If so, then say that explicitly. But realize that you have opted for bigotry in allowing only secularist ideas in cinema.